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Sign up todayDefying Hitler
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Learn moreWhen the famous German author Sebastian Haffner died at age ninety-one in 1999, a manuscript was discovered among his unpublished papers that offers a compelling eyewitness account of the rise of Hitler and Nazism. He describes the country's inflation and the political climate that contributed to Hitler's rise to power and also examines the pervasive influence of such groups as the Free Corps and the Hitler Youth movement that swept the nation. He elucidates how the average educated German grappled with a rapidly changing society, while chronicling day-to-day changes in attitudes, beliefs, politics, and prejudices.
A major bestseller in Germany, Defying Hitler is an illuminating portrait of a time, a place, and a people.
Sebastian Haffner (1938–1999) was born in Berlin. In 1938 he emigrated to England where he began writing for the Observer. He returned to Germany in 1954 and became the bestselling author of, among other works, The Rise and Fall of Prussia, From Bismarck to Hitler, and The Meaning of Hitler.
Robert Whitfield is the pseudonym for Simon Vance, an AudioFile Golden Voice with over forty Earphones Awards. He has also won more than a dozen prestigious Audie Awards and has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over thirty years.
Oliver Pretzel, the translator, is the son of Sebastian Haffner. He was born in 1938 shortly after his parents’ arrival in England and was educated in England and Germany. He is a mathematics professor at Imperial College, London, and is married with three children.
Reviews
“A short, stabbing, brilliant book…It is important, first, as evidence of what one intelligent German knew in the 1930s about the unspeakable nature of Nazism, at a time when the overwhelming majority of his countrymen claim to have known nothing at all. And, second, for its rare capacity to reawaken anger about those who made the Nazis possible.”
“An electrifying discovery.”
“Sebastian Haffner was Germany’s political conscience…this is a memoir of frightening relevance today.”
“The most important book of the year.”
“Unsurpassable…Wonderfully written…There is an exceptional literary power in what he writes…Haffner’s brief autobiography is replete with historical insights, expressed with a lightness of touch and a literary verve.”
“A remarkable account…Deserves a wide readership elsewhere in the world.”
“A small masterpiece.”
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